Cognitive Psychology

B term, 2010

October 29, 2010

Images from all over the web used under “Fair Use” clause, for educational purposes

Course website

• http://users.wpi.edu/~rsbaker/CogPsy2010/

• Would a FAQ be useful?

– I noticed I got a lot of the same questions by email

Quiz

• Today we will have a quiz– It will be ungraded, and does not count as one of the

four graded quizzes– It will give you an idea of the format used for the rest

of the term

• You will have 10 minutes to complete the quiz

• You will not be allowed to use any outside resources during the quiz (e.g. book, notes, neighbor, wikipedia)

Quiz

Quiz

• Grade yourself

Quiz Answers

Quiz Answers

• Synapse:

• Parietal Lobe:

• Occipital Lobe:

Quiz Answers

• Synapse: The gap between the end of the neuron’s axon and the dendrites or cell body of another neuron

• Parietal Lobe: The primary part of the brain that receives skin senses

• Occipital Lobe: The primary part of the brain that receives vision

Quiz Answers

• Temporal Lobe:

• Crouton:

Quiz Answers

• Temporal Lobe: The primary part of the brain that receives sound

• Crouton: A tasty snack

Quiz Answers

• What technology would you use to study exactly where in the brain neural firing is occurring when a stimulus occurs?

Quiz Answers

• What technology would you use to study exactly where in the brain neural firing is occurring when a stimulus occurs?

– fMRI

• What are ERP, GSR, EEG, and REM used for?

Quiz Answers

• Write an example of speech that might be produced by an individual with Wernicke’sAphasia who is trying to explain how facial recognition works in the brain.

Quiz Answers

“So them I said to face and the face was in that port, you know, of the brain that’s, well, it’s East of the thing when it is stumbered when, uh, when it flabors. Because she’s waiting for this! She’s waiting for time for the signal to come through for the face to seventy six and not where, not where you know, you know you shouldn’t gort if you’re a face. I think so.”

Key Points

• What are some key aspects of Wernicke’sAphasia speech?

Key Points

• Nonsense words

• Words that aren’t quite right but sound similar to correct words

• Repetitiveness

• Seemingly meaningful phrases that make no sense when put together

• Generally meaningful grammar

Today’s Class

• CogLab

• Cognitive Neuroscience

• Survey

CogLab

• Please hand in your CogLab writeup now– A few of you got extensions, due to problems with

book shipping and/or the CogLab codes you got online – your CogLabs must be in by next class

• I would like your comments on the assignment, since this is the first time I’ve used CogLabs; a survey will be available on line (I’ll hand out the URL at the end of class)

Asymmetric Brain

• Who here has an asymmetric brain?

• Who doesn’t?

Asymmetric Brain

• Who here has an asymmetric brain?

• Who doesn’t?

• Quick sign test…

– http://www.graphpad.com/quickcalcs/binomial1.cfm

Asymmetric Brain

• Who here found the chimeric faces creepy?

• Why were they so creepy?

– We’ll discuss this in more detail in the Perception class next Tuesday

What else…

• What else did you learn from doing the CogLab?

Today’s Class

• CogLab

• Cognitive Neuroscience

• Survey

Donders

• Last class I said something inaccurate about the Donders study

– Sorry – as the first study in Cog Psych, over 150 years ago, it’s not a study I think about very often

• Participants pushed buttons with only one hand, so it did not deal with brain asymmetry, unlike the CogLab

The Brain

Phrenology

Phrenology(Gall, 1819)

• The theory that each brain area has a specific function, with different general mental faculties located in different parts of this brain

• Mental faculties = moral and intellectual propensities

27 brain regions

• Including specialized regions for remembering people, remembering words, linguistic ability, recognizing colors, musical talent, factual memory

27 brain regions

• Including specialized regions for remembering people, remembering words, linguistic ability, recognizing colors, musical talent, factual memory

• And also specialized regions for pride, vanity, affection, courage, murderousness, sneakiness, metaphysical sensitivity, religiousness

By the late 19th century

• Phrenology had been comfortable refuted

And it didn’t return…

And it didn’t return…

• Until fairly recently

And it didn’t return…

• Until fairly recently

• Under the new title of Cognitive Neuroscience

Granted

• There are a few differences between Phrenology and Cognitive Neuroscience

Better Measuring Apparatus

Focus on cognitive constructs

• Whereas the phrenologists tried to discover personality and moral characteristics in specific brain locations

• Cognitive neuroscientists focus on cognitive phenomena like those discussed in your chapter

For the most part…

So why am I telling you this?

• Two reasons

Reason One

Brain location is an oversimplification

• Brain location and functioning is a oversimplification

• For example, patients with damage to Broca’sarea experience Broca’s aphasia

• But many of them can re-learn to speak coherently with therapy– Other parts of the brain can “help out”, so to speak

Brain location is an oversimplification

• But it’s a *useful* oversimplification

• *Most* of the processing that is now thought to occur in certain areas really does occur there, in normal cases

• Just not all of it, and not in all cases

Reason Two

Science works this way

• Ultimately, the phrenologists did not have the scientific methodologies to validate and refine their theories

– Calipers just don’t weren’t good enough measurement tools

Science works this way

• But the underlying reality of cognition looks a lot more like phrenology than their 19th and 20th century critics would have admitted

– They were wrong (mostly) about moral and personal qualities being locational

– But they were right (mostly) about cognitive abilities being locational

Any questions?

Modern brain maps

ACT-R modules and brain regions

What is ACT-R?

• The predominant unified theory of human cognition

• Will be discussed in detail in the last lecture of the term

Neuronal firing and memory

• No one neuron corresponds to one memory

• But different patterns of neuronal activation correspond to different memories

– For instance, memory of a large set of faces can be represented by a small number of neurons

Methods used to study neural regions

Brain damage

• Case studies of patients with brain damage

Brain damage

• If an injury to a specific brain region replicablycauses a specific dysfunction, we can conclude that this region is necessary for correct functioning

• That’s how Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area were discovered

fMRI scanning

fMRI scanning

• Indication of where blood flows in brain for specific cognitive processing, based on magnetism

• Used to develop brain region maps

• Previous method was PET scanning

– involved taking dose of radiation

fMRI image

inactive

active

EEG scanning

EEG scanning

• Measures electrical pulses in brain

• Measures brain-wide types of waves rather than specific brain regions

EEG scanning

Types of waves

• Alpha waves – wakeful relaxation versus sleep or activity

• Beta waves – concentration, activity, anxiety

• Gamma waves – conscious attention, meditative state

• Delta waves – slow-wave sleep

Bio-feedback

• Is anyone here familiar with bio-feedback?

Bio-feedback

• Is anyone here familiar with bio-feedback?

• By showing people their brain waves, they can be trained to alter their brain waves

Neat thing

• NovelQuest has a game, MindBall, where you compete to increase your Alpha and Theta waves

• Two players sit across a table with a ball between them

• The ball rolls towards whoever has more brain activity

• Whoever the ball reaches loses

MindBall

• http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/exhibits/you/the-exhibit/your-vitality/mindball/mindball-video/

MindBall

• I played this at a museum in Chicago and won (I used Bhakti Yoga meditation, so maybe I cheated)

Any questions?

Se tem tempo

• 83

Practical uses

Medicine

• How could cognitive neuroscience be used to support medicine?

Medicine

• How could cognitive neuroscience be used to support medicine?

• Knowledge of region-function mappings and correct functioning can support diagnosis of neurological disorders and treatment of brain injuries caused by strokes or physical trauma

Education

• How could cognitive neuroscience be used to support education?

Education

• How could cognitive neuroscience be used to support education?

• EEGs have been used to classify learners’ emotions, which may eventually provide more sensitive support when learners become upset

Support for air-traffic controllers

• How could cognitive neuroscience be used to support air traffic controllers?

Support for air-traffic controllers

• How could cognitive neuroscience be used to support air traffic controllers?

• EEGs are used to recognize an air-traffic controllers’ working-memory load (more on this later) and visual load, in order to recognize when errors are possible

Other domains?

• Where else could cognitive neuroscience be beneficial?

• Non-majors: Can you think of examples that would impact practitioners in your major?

Any questions?

For next class

• Do the CogLab on either Mueller-Lyer or Visual Search

– Basic and advanced questions

• Your choice

Today’s Class

• CogLab

• Cognitive Neuroscience

• Survey

Survey

• I’d like to ask you to take a survey online before the next class

• This will help me determine how things are going, and how to make class better

• I won’t have time to adjust things for the next class, but will do so for the following class

Survey link

• http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/63PG2KT

The End

Brain Damage

Broca’s Aphasia

• Damage to Broca’s Area

• Can anyone give an example of behavior coming from this?

Broca’s Aphasia

• Damage to Broca’s Area

• Can anyone give an example of behavior coming from this?

• “Yes... ah... Monday... er... Dad and Peter H… and Dad.... er... hospital... and ah... Wednesday... Wednesday, nine o'clock... and oh... Thursday... ten o'clock, ah doctors... two... an' doctors... and er... teeth... Yah”

Ways to adjust

• Singing

• For some reason, singing is controlled by different brain architecture, so sufferers of Broca’s Aphasia can often sing fluently, and can learn to sing instead of speaking

Wernicke’s Aphasia

• Damage to Wernicke’s Area

• We discussed examples of this earlier in class

• Also amenable to singing

Achromatopsia

• Inability to see colors

• Occurs due to brain lesions in different areas

• Different from standard “color-blindness”, which involves inability to distinguish specific colors, such as red-green

Achromatopsia

Achromatopsia

Achromatopsia

Achromatopsia

• What are some life impacts of achromatopsia?

Ways to adjust

• Eyeborg

– Translates colors into sound waves

Associative Visual Agnosia

• Inability to recognize objects

• You can draw object, but you can’t identify what it is

Associative Visual Agnosia

• Inability to recognize objects

• You can draw object, but you can’t identify what it is

a hat?

Apraxia

• Typically caused by damage to cerebellum

• Inability to make specific movements (with no motor problems)

Allochiria

• Typically caused by damage to right parietal lobe

• Perception that event occurred to opposite side of body

Prosopagnosia

• Inability to recognize faces

• We’ll discuss this in the next lecture

Witzelsucht

• Caused by damage to prefrontal cortex

• Sudden change of sense of humor to highly inappropriate behavior

And many more

• http://dubinweb.com/brain/a2.html